10 years to go .... maybe, with a fair wind

Lauraebrad

12th April already - and April is certainly Apriling today switching between blue skies and showers with alarming frequency.  The small one is with his dad today and I have some hardcore pottering to do - catching up with myself after the delightful, but ultimately tiring, break over the Easter holidays.  

We had a delightful two night trip to a lovely youth hostel in the Yorkshire Dales this week.  It’s harder as the small one gets older as I’m sure he’d rather spend time with friends than me - but I was the only option available!  Under duress he did some walking with me, and we ate a lot of delicious food.  The hostel had catering which was really good, and we also cooked for ourselves some of the time.  I’m always on the look out for good ideas for foods to prepare away from home.  The winner this time (not ours sadly!) was a fancy looking foil dish of moussaka with garlic bread.  The room was booked during the YHA sale earlier this year, and despite all the food consumed, and the price of fuel to drive to the other end of Yorkshire it was still a good value break. 

Thinking about hostel cooking becomes all the more relevant as I’m currently in the process of booking the various legs of our summer holiday which is going to involve swinging through Switzerland and therefore a lot of very frugal supermarket eating by all accounts! 

In mortgage news, my building society app has recently been updated so that I can now see mortgage transactions - previously only the balance was shown. Now that I’m in much lower figures, and will be sending more OPs directly to the mortgage rather than saving them up to deliver in a lump sum, it’ll be motivating I think to see that number reducing quickly(ish) down.  Might set myself some mini challenges to add to my current regular OPs …

An unexpected expense (my fault for not thinking ahead) this month was new walking boots for the teenager.  Managed to get a good deal at G0 0utd00rs but need to offset that further.  Have just today managed to sell his old walking shoes on V1nted for £20 which is a good start, so think I’ll set a challenge to match that with other sales and / or pr0l1f1c before the credit card is due.

Thinking that the remainder of April will be relatively quiet post-holidays.  No birthdays to buy for, or occasions for eating out that I can think of.  So a couple of weeks frugality before next pay day - which will do me the worlds of good!

Hope everyone out there is having an excellent April.

South_coast

Your trips sound epic - I would happily come and be your child if your DS ever wants to swap 😀!

P.S. I love the idea of hardcore pottering

Lauraebrad

Ah thanks @South_coast ! I do love him dearly, but it is so freeing whenever I go on trips with friends to not feel like I'm having to coax them to pack their stuff / come for a walk / put their phone down ….

savingholmes

Laura - it's said we've spent 90% of the time we will with our kids by the age of 18… Scary thought. But given my DS is on the other side of the world it certainly feels true…

Well done on the holiday and memory making. Switzerland sounds like it will be awesome too.

Lauraebrad

May is galloping along so time for an update. I’m always discombobulated by Bank Holiday weeks - I’m sure I’m in the minority not being a massive fan of them.  I find either that everyone else is doing something interesting to maximise the long weekend and you feel underwhelmed if you don’t have plans - or otherwise you decide to do something fun and everyone else is also there jamming the place up!!

Anyway.  Last month was a bit of a budget buster so trying a bit harder to rein things in this month.  I’ve no idea how, but managed to massively overspend on the groceries / household budget.  Some of that was date confusion (i.e. purchases that should have been this month) and some was delivery of a large box of loo rolls that I failed to pause in time.  However, I think a fair amount was just sloppy shopping habits.  That …. and a new found taste for kimchi and sauerkraut.  Improving my gut microbiome is turning out to be expensive - so maybe I need to add trying to make my own onto my list of things to do.  The locally made beetroot, fennel and orange kraut is currently winning the sandwich filling stakes. 

In sort-of money saving news, a friend has gifted us their old coffee machine this week, as they have upgraded.  I have very happily used a stove-top moka pot for years, but the small one has been on at me to get a coffee machine with a milk frothing want for ages - so this is actually perfect.  It’s nice and small which is good, and it also turns out that the teenager is quite a good barista (too much time watching Yootoob videos I suspect) - so it’ll be a fun addition to the kitchen for £0. 

I could really do with getting into the garden this weekend.  I’m taking wildness to new levels - no mow May is more like no mow 2025 and 2026.  I have seed potatoes waiting to plant out, and a quick look in my mum’s greenhouse last weekend was enough to tell me that there will be all manner of seedlings wending my way soon.  So this weekend I shall tackle all the pots of dried out compost from last year’s plants I think.  Really wishing that I’d done it in the autumn of course.  But hey ho. 

The other day I was mulling over work, which is only going to get trickier in the short term, and thinking about my longer term prospects.  Someone in my team is leaving, who started on the same day as me.  He’s just leaving.  Not retiring or moving elsewhere.  And it got me to thinking that that degree of freedom and flexibility is a mighty thing indeed.  I do have a (short) list of other places that I could potentially work that would use my skills well.  Although after the last few years its so tempting to take a slide right back down the ladder away from the stress of responsibility.  On balance though I think that the next four years is the time to put my preparation in for whatever freedom I might arrive at, or wherever I might leap to.  A few reasons for this: (1) 4 years is long enough to follow through on my current work without entering into the next ‘cycle’ (2) 4 years is how long the small one will have left at school / 6th form (3) Approx 4 years is realistic to pay off the mortgage (4) 4 years is a good time to have my career average pension in a good place.  I’m not saying anything drastic will happen in 4 years time, but having considered all these aspects it does seem like a good time frame to pull a lot of elements together.

Anyway, that’s the long term …. Right now living in the minute I have approx 30 mins in the garden before the teenager crashes in from school so let’s see if I can get those spuds in.